Tip of the Week - Edge Lines
Tip of the Week - Use Edge lines for better detail
Edge Lines displays the edges of faces when rendered. This is especially valuable with scenes which contain cabinets or furniture where edge lines are necessary to bring out the detail of the components. If edge lines aren’t used, the details can be washed out due to lighting and material choices.
Users could use a program such as Photoshop to blend two images together, one of the rendered image and one of only the edge lines, but this is time consuming and difficult, a better option would be to have it done for the user with their rendering program. Using rendering software that can support edge lines can give the user a high quality image as well as helping to make the details of their model stand out.
If your renderer does support edge lines, then you will have the added advantage that the edge lines will appear in reflections, as well as the rendering.
Please take a look at the images to the right. Notice how in the image without edge lines, the details in the cabinets are washed out and flat, it is very hard to tell what type of trim work was adding to them. But the image with edge lines, the details of the trim stand out and are easily seen.